


The House with the Worst Candy

by Ravenshell



Category: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TV 1987), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: 13Days of Halloween, 13daysofhorror, Candy, Halloween, OTTMNT, Technodrome, awful candy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-29
Updated: 2020-10-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:26:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27262702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ravenshell/pseuds/Ravenshell
Summary: Shredder is lectured by a certain trick-or-treater about his candy selection.Written for the 13 Days of Horror on devArt. Day 11's prompt: This is the worst candy ever.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	The House with the Worst Candy

The doorbell chimed. The cheerful ding-dong seemed out of place with the interior decoration of metal, metal, and more metal, not to mention echoed terribly around the undampened vast space. It also echoed around his metal kabuto and tended to give him a headache. They should have never had it installed, but in such large accommodations, they tended to not hear a knock.

“Shredder! Get the door *waark!*”

“Ugh… Can’t you get it this time?” the ninja master whined.

The giant mechanical suit housing the brain alien in its stomach turned toward him. “I am installing a very important upgrade to the Technodrome’s main operating system!” it croaked at him. “Right now it’s stalled at eight *pur*cent… I have to stay here to make sure it actually goes up. Aha! _Nine_ percent! Installing Windows 10 will be completely *worth* the wait, and then this wretched dimension will be mine!” The alien wrung his tentacles in satisfaction.

“Ahem?” the ninja prompted.

“…Ours,” Kraang corrected himself. “Go answer the door!”

The Shredder heaved a world-weary sigh. “Fine…” He picked up the large bowl of candy from a pedestal and dragged himself to the elevator. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have to go down seventy-three floors to get there. The technologically advanced lift was fast, but not nearly fast enough for the distance it needed to cover. The bell sounded again. “Coming!” he called apologetically.

He opened the sliding panel door to the familiar stench of his hench-mutants, holding out a plastic jack-o-lantern and a bunched-up pillow case.

“Trick or Treat, Bawss!” the rhino called merrily.

“Yeah! *snort*,” the warthog echoed. “Trick or Treat!”

Shredder made sure annoyance showed in his eyes. When it was the only part of the face one could see, nonverbal communication was key to getting his point across.

“Aren’t you two a little old for trick-or-treating?”

“Aw, Bawss, you’re never too old for fun!” Rocksteady admonished, shaking a pudgy finger at him.

“Yeah, or free candy!” Bebop grunted while his companion nodded in affirmation.

Shredder raised an eyebrow. “Where are your costumes?”

“Dese _are_ our costumes, Boss” the hog announced.

“We put a lot of effort into them!” confirmed the rhinoceros.

The eyebrow went up further. Any more incredulity and he might strain something. “This is the same thing you always wear!”

“No, Bawss, you’ve got it all wrong! We specifically dressed up for Halloween,” Rocksteady explained patiently. “I’m dressed as video-game star Duke Nukem.”

Bebop took over. “*snort* And I’m ‘80s punk rock icon Billy Idol. See?”

“Well, I… suppose I can’t argue with that.” He could. Oh, could he. But the less he had to interact with these two cretins the better, so he dumped a handful of candy into each of their sacks.

“Thank you!” Bebop said and nudged his partner.

“Oh, yeah… Thanks, Bawss! Happy Halloween!”

“Whatever…” Shredder answered.

Rocksteady gave an enthused hop. “Ooh! Maybe we can go to Krang next!”

Shredder let out a dubious hum. “Krang isn’t much on Halloween… popcorn balls remind him of some sort of childhood trauma.”

“I heard General Traag is handing out rock candy,” Bebop volunteered.

“Yeah, but last year, his ‘rock candy’ was really rocks!”

“Just get out of here, you idiots!” the ninja master announced, slamming the button to close the door. Whatever exit those two dolts had used to get out of the Technodrome to trick-or-treat, they weren’t following him back in, by any means.

He was back in the elevator and had just passed floor 52 when the bell went off again, but there was no stop button on this so-called technological advancement, so there was no choice but to ride it all the way to the 73rd.

“Shredder, you *id*iot, the door! We’ve just achieved _eleven_ percent! This dimension will be mine, MINE—ours! *waark* Ours. I said ‘ours.’”

Shredder could only sigh, wilt, and press the button for the bottom floor.

“Coming, coming!”

He opened the door, this time to a group of four, all of their faces hidden by their costumes: a ghost, a witch, an astronaut, and a gorilla. And, strangely, each had a different-colored bandana tied across their eyes. They all recited the customary query for candy and held out their candy bags and pails, and Shredder, blank-faced and sounding bored as could be, dropped a handful of candies into each. “And there’s some for you, and you… and some for you… there you are… and you…Here you go… and for you.” He paused for a moment as three of the trick-or-treaters thanked him, thinking that he’d lost count somewhere, but he dismissed it while returning their hail of “Happy Halloween!”

He was about to shut the door again, when the fourth of the group, the one with the plastic witch mask over their face and a red bandana over it, approached him again. “Hold up there, bub…”

“Yes? What is it?”

The witch wrapped a bulky arm around him, pulling him to walk down the Technodrome’s ramp with him. “We gotta talk about your candy choices here. It’s seriously the _worst_.”

Shredder blinked, a bit abashed at his selection being slighted. “Oh? What’s wrong with it?”

The witch dug into his pumpkin, pulling out a piece of white candy with some sort of fruit bits in it. “These… are totally awful. Nobody likes them. Nobody. They’re like the fruitcake of Halloween treats. Some kids even say they give you cancer!” 

“Cancer?!” the master ninja gasped, wide-eyed. “Really?”

He dug into the bucket again, pulling out another piece. “Black licorice. Ee-yuck! You know this is a holiday for kids, right? How many kids do you know that go, ‘Mmm, I sure do love black licorice!’?”

“Well, I…” he pondered. “I guess I don’t really know _any_ kids,” he shrugged.

“Really. Shocking,” the figure said flatly, pulling out a small bag of packaged treats. “Candy corn. Nasty! Tootsie Rolls… Boy, you really avoided the top shelf like the plague, didn’t you? Do you _want_ to torture people?”

“Actually…” he started, but the witch immediately cut him off.

“Look, I know you’re probably expressing some kind of wrong that was inflicted on you as a child, but don’t pass that on to kids at Halloween! It’s the most magical time of the year… when a kid can get free candy from all their neighbors, eat half of it the minute they get home and puke it all up again on the living room carpet! Don’t ruin the experience with lousy, cheap candy, man!”

“I… I had no idea!”

“Plus, if your selection isn’t up to par, chances are you’re gonna get yourself TP’ed.”

“Well, gee, now I feel a bit guilty about all this…”

“Lemme tell ya, if you want to stay on kids’ good side and not get egged, shell out for the good stuff… fun-size Snickers, at least. And no apples, unless they’re caramel.”

“But apples are healthy and good for you!”

“Exactly! Halloween is about the opposite of that! Could be worse, though. Mrs. Meyer, the dentist’s wife, is handing out apples and toothbrushes.”

Shredder drew back, aghast. “That’s a kind of evil even _I_ wouldn’t commit!”

The witch nodded. “Tell me about it. Hand out some condescension, why don’t you. Kids don’t need that!”

“No, certainly not!”

“And really, that doesn’t hold a cheap glow-stick to the Ulriches down the block… They’re handing out full-size candy bars! Now _that_ is a place that the pranksters won’t lay a finger on!”

The trick-or-treater in the red band—so familiar!—flapped a green, three-fingered hand at him. “Anyway… just wanted to point that out to you. Good luck! Happy Halloween!”

“Erm, yes… Thank you, and Happy…” He paused. Happy? Not his style. “…Halloween.”

Retreating inside—No, a ninja never retreated… This was merely… advancing backside first!—he punched the door button to close the door with more aggression than necessary, cracking the housing surrounding it. It obligingly slid closed with speed to match the force of the button press, clanging with the extra force. 

Out of curiosity, he plucked one of the white cube candies from the dish and unwrapped it, letting the wrapper fall where it may. He chewed it pensively for a moment. “Ugh!” he decided, and spat the remainder to the floor, death-dragon kicking it into a far corner before stomping to the elevator.  
  
He stewed for the first 27 floors, let out a growl that lasted through the 33rd, felt a bit better from the 47th through 51st, and returned to being in a funk by the time he reached the 73rd again and was greeted once more by his brain-blob compatriot shouting his name.

“Install not going well?” he sighed.

“Incidentally, *waarg* no. We’re still stuck at twelve percent! But that’s beside the point!” The mechanical suit typed a few commands, bringing up a video feed on the giant monitor obscured by white streaks. “Some rapscallion has _soaped_ the Technodrome’s main observation viewscreen, and some of the rock soldiers report *that* the entire outer structure has been thoroughly draped with two-ply!”

The ninja master sagged visibly, a posture he allowed few to see. He was so done right now. He could not, as the kids said these days, even. He hated to admit it, but the witch visitor had been right.

“Krang, turn off the porch light. I’m going to bed.

“I don’t know what you expected,” Krang muttered. “We’re underground. No one even has access down here except us and those troublesome teenage terrapins!”

Across the room, the ceramic candy bowl shattered on the floor.

Outside the Technodrome, Leonardo and Michelangelo had finished tossing rolls of toilet paper back and forth across the massive stranded vehicle, and Donatello was packing up his 36-egg catapult. Raphael lifted his witch mask from his face to wink at the fourth wall, still wearing his usual red mask underneath. The four costumed turtles boarded their tunneler and drilled upward through the cavern walls toward their home.


End file.
